Miracle at Ace Hardware

I suppose if we’re lucky, we all experience a Christmas miracle or two during our lifetimes. Okay, maybe not Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life caliber miracle, but a little something special that happens around this time of year. I found mine last week at the post office of all places. Yes, the post office and even that Grinch Louis DeJoy couldn’t steal it from me.

The post office I frequent most often is in the back of an Ace Hardware store. It’s conveniently located in a shopping center that includes a grocery store, a CVS, and a Starbucks. Let me digress for a moment. I am the least handy woman on earth. My toolbox is the size of a cigar box. I’m lucky that I have gifted friends who can fix things. That said, I’ve always loved hardware stores. Maybe it’s because it was one of my favorite places to visit with my dad when I was little. He was a super handy guy and took great pride in fixing things. Sidebar: This fixing almost always involved a lot of colorful cussing, which also intrigued me as a child. Anyway, he would often go to the hardware store on Saturday mornings for some part or widget he needed, and I would race to the car to ride shotgun with him. Calm down, Karen – there were no car seat laws back in the olden days. My mother had the reflexes of a panther and could catch a 40 pound kid sliding off the seat with one hand.

**This guy could fix anything with a little cussing and a lot of duct tape.**

I had no idea (still don’t) what most of the things in the store were, but I loved all the organized bins and shelves brimming with so many mysterious parts. I can remember what that store smelled like – woody, musty, manly. Think Hardware Store, a new fragrance for men and Sam Elliot as the celebrity spokesperson. It felt like entering a secret clubhouse because there were never many women, much less little girls there. My dad would talk to a lot of the other men, and they would be nice to me. And the best part was that the store had a little pen with baby chicks under a heat lamp. I loved holding those warm little peeps and feeling their tiny racing hearts in my hands and I’m certain that early bonding partially explains my vegetarianism as an adult.

Okay, so now you see why I think the idea of a post office in a hardware store is cool – convenience and nostalgia. My post office is tiny – two stations at the counter but usually only one person is working. Oh, and they never seem to have books of stamps for purchase. Seriously? It drove me crazy for years and then I just started ordering them online. I care about stamps – probably too much. I’m old school when it comes to correspondence. I still send notes and postcards, so I use quite a few stamps each year and I want them to be a little more creative than the FOREVER flag.

But my tiny post office is great for mailing packages. Parking is a breeze and there’s rarely a line. The clerks are friendly, and you can get in and out quickly. Well, except at Christmas, of course. The good news is that I only had two packages to mail. The bad news is that both were going to California. That’s a pricey passage via Priority Mail. True story – the postage for one of my packages cost more than the contents. Alas, both boxes included homemade cookies and I wanted them to arrive intact and relatively fresh – so speed was of the essence.

**It’s the most wonderful time of the year**!

Strategy is key to mailing holiday packages. I arrived at the store a few minutes after the 8 AM opening on Monday. A very young woman standing behind the register at the front of the store greeted me with a forlorn expression. She squeaked out, “Good morning” in her tiny voice and then took a deep breath. I sensed she was preparing to deliver some grim news. She said, “The post office lady is running late this morning.” I swear she winced when the words left her mouth as if she were expecting me to punch her in the nose. I smiled and said, “Okay.” The look of relief on her face made me sad. I guess she’s been abused like many dealing with the public in these thinly staffed times. I continued to the back of the store and discovered my early bird status placed me at the head of a line going nowhere.

A few minutes later a young man carrying two envelopes walked up. He had heard the disappointing news, too, and shrugged at me like “what are you going to do” – and immediately got on his phone. I couldn’t hear his conversation, but the tone was stressful – too stressful for 8 AM. Soon, another woman with a couple of boxes joined the queue. By now it was 8:20. I considered leaving and coming back later but one of my boxes was pretty big and I was over schlepping it.

My pondering was interrupted by the sound of the harried postal clerk announcing her arrival. “I’m here, I’m here! I’m sorry I’m late. My daughter has four children and had a flat tire this morning and I had to rescue her.” I’ve used punctuation here, but her explanation came out as one breathy, emotional run on sentence. I’m always amused how Southerners can just spill their guts to total strangers on a dime. Her apology was most sincere, and it would have been cruel to say anything but what we all said – “It’s fine.”

The clerk threw off her coat and turned on whatever makes the post office engine run. The stressed-out guy had stepped over to a rack of greeting cards to take another call and was pacing while he talked. He was starting to stress me out. I’ve realized during COVID II that sometimes I can feel the collective stress and angst of my fellow humans – especially in places like the grocery store and parking lots. And, yes, the post office. Even though I was clearly at the head of the line, the clerk bellowed out, “Okay, who’s first?” And then my better angels took over. I know, who knew I had them? I said to the stressed-out guy, “Go ahead. You just have those letters to mail.” He looked at me like I had offered him a kidney. He said, “No, no, I can’t.” I said, “Yes. It’s no problem.” He still seemed incredulous to my offer and asked me if I was sure – like this was a binding legal agreement. I assured him it was fine, and he said thanks and walked to the counter. And, as expected, his business with Chatty Cathy was quickly finished.

I assumed he would probably thank me again as he passed by me on the way out. What I didn’t see coming was that he stopped right in front of me and looked me directly in my eyes (the ones right above my mask line) and softly said, “Thank you. I really needed that today.” For a second, I thought he might actually hug me. And honestly, I think I would have been all in. I smiled back at him and said, “I kind of thought you did. You’re welcome.” No, an angel didn’t get his wings or anything, but in that moment, it felt like a communion of sorts. Two weary humans in a never-ending pandemic making a brief but authentic connection in the little post office in Ace Hardware. It was just what I didn’t know I needed.

**Original art by the fabulous Woodie Anderson. art.woodieanderson.net**

I was on a high when I finally got to unload my packages to the clerk. She put the big box on the scale and groaned, “Oh, no.” I laughed out loud and told her I knew how much it cost to send something cross country. She apologized again for being late and told me earnestly that there was no way she was going to leave her daughter in distress. “I’m the only one she haves,” she said. And then I heard the sound of my own voice saying, “Well, then it sounds as if she has quite a lot.” She smiled at me sweetly and this time I’m pretty sure I heard a bell ring.

**Actual photo of me at the Post Office.**

P.S. Shout out to the USPS! My packages were scheduled to arrive on Thursday and were delivered a day early. Okay, the two cookie containers in the big box were slightly crushed, but nary a cookie was crumbled Ding, ding! Another tiny miracle.

**Pretty packages resting after their cross country journey to Berkeley.**

**I’m here for tiny miracles and tiny trees this year.**

Traveling light

I recently streamed the film Nomadland and it may just be the most perfect movie to view as our pandiversary approaches. Yep, one year – one endless year in lockdown. The movie is adapted from the book Nomadland: Surviving America in the 21^st Century by journalist Jessica Burder. Fern, a sixty-something-year-old woman, played by the astonishing Frances McDormand, is a fictional character that does not appear in the book but is based on a composite of many of the real-life vandwellers Burder followed for almost two years. Here’s the basic plot – Fern puts most of her possessions in a storage unit, tricks out a weathered van to live in, and hits the open road of the American West. Her husband Bob has died and the town they lived in has been dissolved after the closing of the local gypsum plant. There is literally nothing left for her as she leaves Empire, Nevada to find seasonal work at an Amazon fulfillment center in Virginia. She’s got a few personal belongings and a good bit of unattended wanderlust as she heads out alone.

Are you all in? Okay, life can’t be all Bridgerton. Stay with me just a while as I connect some existential dots. I’ve always appreciated clever symbolism and Fern’s storage unit was a pandemic Pandora’s box for me. Most of her belongings are mundane – old furniture, some lamps, clothing – but one special box is filled with dishes her father gave her when she graduated from high school. The pattern is Autumn Leaf and we learn later in the film that he had collected the set at yard sales over the years. The only other item she pulls out of the pile of boxes is a denim jacket – her late husband’s – and she hugs it to her chest and smells it – longing for the scent of her lost life.

**A pandemic is good time to get rid of a lot of old crap.**

I had a storage unit for a couple of years after I moved in with my wife. I had owned a three-bedroom house and was downsizing into her condo. You’ll need some backstory here. My dear wife was a minimalist long before Marie Kondo made it fashionable. She values experiences over things. True story – the first time I came to her condo when we started dating, I thought it was the model unit. I’m serious – there was just not much stuff. I’m pretty sure I broke into a cold sweat wondering how this would ever work out if we got together for the long haul. I had some stuff. Quality stuff, but quantity, too.

**Survivors of the Great Downsizing of 2013.**

I pared down when I moved in with her and rented a storage unit for things I would save for when we moved into a bigger place. The transition to minimalism was a rocky one for me in the beginning. I can laugh out loud about it now. Early on my wife said to me, “what you own, owns you.” Back then, I didn’t mind being owned by a lot of pottery. Today, I no longer have a storage unit and when it came time to get rid of it, I only kept a few antique pieces that belonged to my parents. I either gave away or sold the rest. And guess what? I don’t miss any of it. And I’m grateful for a spouse who would never say I told you so. Oh, and we never did move to a bigger place. We decided to live small and travel large. Okay, we may have questioned that decision more than a few times during the past 12 months.

We’ve all had to store a lot in our metaphorical storage units this past year – luxuries like trips and dinner parties and eating inside restaurants – and more precious things like visits with loved ones. I haven’t seen my sister in California in 14 months – since Christmas over a year ago. She works in healthcare and has had half a dozen COVID exposures at work. She is now fully vaccinated, and I am sleeping better at night. We speak on the phone every day and sometimes we get teary when we wonder when we will be able to see each other again. I always miss her but knowing she has been in the epicenter of the pandemic has been excruciating. That’s probably why I have little patience for those whining about frivolous matters like vacations. Not to go all Melania on you, but, no, I really don’t care that you haven’t been able to go to Europe in a year.

Now don’t get me wrong – I’ve been no role model for selflessness during this pandemic. I’ve had more than a few breakdowns over having to make dinner for the 18^th time in a week. Those meltdowns have sometimes ended with an entrée of a peanut butter sammie paired with a nice Malbec. One night before bed a few weeks ago, I told my wife that the white dishes she has had for over a dozen years were sucking my soul dry and that I desperately needed some color in my dinner plates. I give her a lot of credit. After listening to my emotional nonsensical monologue, she paused a few seconds before responding and then said tenderly, “I didn’t realize this was so important to you.” I felt heard and sometimes that’s what you need most in the middle of a pandemic. Note: We still haven’t gotten any new plates because I seemed to have gotten over my deep dish anguish.

**My pandemic special. Recipe available upon request.**

Some of us put hair color and professional cuts in our pandemic storage units. I haven’t seen my stylist in a year. If you had told me this a year ago, I would have laughed in your face. No restaurants are one thing, but no cut and color? Am I an animal? Well, now that you mention it, my wife now lovingly refers to me as a silver fox. The fox part is obviously quite generous, but the silver is accurate. I’ve gone a bit grey and I don’t hate it at all. 500,000 dead and counting really helps put one’s hair color in perspective. Now, I know I’m lucky that my wife discovered mad skills as a haircutter during lockdown. She’s cut my hair on the front porch, the deck and in the bathroom when the weather turned cold. She really enjoys doing it and it is has become a pandemic ritual that we both find quite settling. I’ll go back to my stylist eventually, but probably not for color. And with the money I’ll save, I too can go to Europe.

Frances McDormand cuts her own hair in Nomadland. I bet she cuts her own hair in her real life, too. She has long been one of my favorite actors and I am always drawn to her authenticity. I saw an interview with her the other day in which she recalled a review of her Oscar winning performance in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri. The critic wrote that “a close-up of Frances McDormand’s face is like visiting a national park.” McDormand loves that description and she loves the story her face tells. And it is a perfect vantage point from which to view the bare natural landscapes we see in Nomadland as Fern moves from park to park following the seasonal work.

While Fern’s journey in the film is a solitary one, she is buoyed by her new community of nomads. They share meals, help each other out and listen to each other’s stories of loss and love. Their grief is tinged with the shared hopefulness of wanderlust. In one of the most moving scenes of the film, Fern has a soulful conversation with Bob Wells, the author and YouTuber who is a vandweller guru. She tells him that her father always told her that what is remembered lives. She says wistfully, “I maybe spent too much of my life just remembering Bob.”

I know I’ve been guilty of that – too much remembering. Losing my parents the way I did – only seven months apart from each other when I was still relatively young and the cascade of collateral damage that followed that loss – broken relationships and bad decisions – made me yearn for a happier time. Like Fern, I have been looking back for too long. This pandemic has made me turn my gaze more forward to something beyond my borders. No, this doesn’t mean I’m buying a van and hitting the road, but I’ve spent a lot of pandemic time working on emptying out some of my emotional storage units – the one filled with regret and shame for past decisions, the one filled with expectations of others that will never be met, and the one filled with burdens I no longer want to carry. I want to travel lighter when this lockdown is over. I want more room for discovery.

Near the end of Nomadland, Fern returns to Empire to empty out her storage unit. We see the back of a pickup truck filled with her belongings. “Are you sure you don’t need any of this stuff?” the owner of the facility asks her. Fern has a peaceful look of certainty on her beautifully worn face as she responds, “No. I don’t need any of it. I’m good. I’m not gonna miss a thing.”

Me either.

**Sisters – Christmas 2019. I can’t wait to be this happy again.**

Dialing for Democracy

I’ve had over 700 conversations with voters over the last month while phone banking for Progressive Project Turnout. That’s about 699 more than I thought I would have when my team was pulled out of the field in early August because of COVID-19 and transitioned from door knocking to phone calling. I mean who answers a number they don’t recognize these days? Well, as it turns out, a pandemic is a damn good time to call people. They’re at home and a lot of them are bored silly and talking to a friendly stranger like me is a nice diversion.

***We’re calling you. Be nice. Please.***

Now, not to paint too rosy of a picture, I’ve probably had twice that number of hang-ups, but I expected that. And then there are the Trumpers, but I’ll save that for later. For the most part, I’ve been deeply moved, honored – and often amused – listening to voters’ thoughts about this election. And best of all, I am very hopeful about November 3^rd. No, really, I am. Joe Biden might not have been a lot of folks first choice, but today he is a LOT of folks only choice. Whatever gets us there.

Joe Biden. I say his name a hundred times of day – think Rain Man and substitute Joe Biden for Judge Wapner – that’s me. I recite parts of the script in my dreams sometimes. My dear wife can even do an amusing impersonation of me since she’s heard me on duty from my home office. Besides politely thanking the Trump voters for their time (grr), making the script sound fresh each time is the most challenging aspect of the gig. By the end of my shift, I’m exhausted from the sound of my own voice, but I go to bed hopeful that our democracy will prevail.

***Me on a break. Joe Biden, Joe Biden, Joe Biden.***

We follow a brief script – I identify myself and who I am representing and slide into the main question – “Do you plan on voting for Joe Biden on November 3^rd?” And that’s when things get interesting. The good – yes – the bad – no – and the ugly – Trumpers who yell at me. There’s a half a second of suspense after the question exits my mouth and hangs there as I wait for the answer. I can almost predict the answer by the sound of someone’s voice, but that’s not foolproof. One of my early calls was to crusty old woman in rural Pennsylvania. I popped the question and there was an awkward pause and she said in a very bold voice, “I…most…certainly… (here it comes, I thought) AM!” She proceeded to tell me that the only monument that Trump’s head should be on is a statue of Larry, Curly and Moe. Lesson learned – you can’t always judge a voter by their address. See 2016.

***Me when a voter tells me they are riding with Biden!***

Our call list is weighted to registered Democrats, but no data is perfect. Almost all the Dems are happy to speak with me – like hearing from an old friend. Here are just a few of my favorite answers to the first question.

I would crawl over broken glass to vote for Joe Biden.
FUCK YEAH! Like my very life depends on it. (I really liked that woman.)
I would vote for a bag of rotten vegetables over Donald Trump.

We then ask if people plan on voting by mail or in person and this has been a disgusting indictment (there will be many more) of Donald Trump’s assault on mail-in voting. People don’t trust the United States Postal System. I spoke to a woman in Warren, MI who told me, “I work for the post office and no way am I mailing my ballot in.” And I talked to a 36-year retiree of the post office in Raleigh who lamented that she can’t trust the mail because of Trump. She said, “I’ve got a mask, a shield and some gloves – I’m voting in person.”

That said – a LOT of people are voting by mail – and many are delivering their ballots in person to a drop-box or their local Board of Elections. But the most encouraging takeaway from this question is that so many people have a plan for voting – they’ve thought it through in advance because they want to protect themselves and their vote. Americans are afraid their vote will not be counted. So much winning.

The last question I ask folks is the one that has evoked answers that have sometimes moved me to tears. What would you say is the primary issue that concerns you the most in the upcoming election? The number one answer by far is getting rid of Donald Trump. Here are just a few of the most memorable responses.

Donald Trump is a doofus and a danger to the whole world.
You don’t let someone in your house who will hurt you. He’s in our house.
Stopping the descent into Fascism.
He’s not even human. (Fascinating new birther conspiracy!)

This is where I often find myself in surprisingly deep conversations with some voters as they share their despair for the state of our union and their hopes for the future. A woman in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania said, “Oh, now you’re going to make me cry. I pray for the welfare of our nation and the heart of our country. My husband and I are voting by mail and going fishing on election day. We’ll fish and pray all day that we’ll get our country back.” Gulp. Many people tell me that they fear for the future of our democracy if Biden is not elected. One man called the last four years “the vandalism of our democracy.” These people aren’t all yellow dog Democrats like me. Some of them tell me that they couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Hillary, but they will vote for Biden. A few even confess that they are Republicans, but they can’t support Trump. It is no small thing to hear a stranger tell you how much they love our country.

We’ve been calling into battleground states except for two days of calling into Kentucky. Wow. I can’t imagine anything lonelier than being a Democrat in Kentucky. Our time calling there was as a longshot that Mitch McConnell might be defeated. Not to be a buzzkill, but we can call that race right now. The Kentucky Dems were so happy to hear from a kindred soul that it was sometimes hard to get them off the phone. It was a little heartbreaking. I felt like I was leaving behind those sweet residents of The Island of Misfit Toys. I promised them that Joe Biden would come back for them.

The other primary concern on most voters’ minds is COVID-19. I spoke with an essential worker in PA who just returned to work after being out for almost four months recovering from COVID. She is what we call a highly motivated voter. People know that this pandemic is far from over and they want to put an adult in charge. I’ve heard touching stories from older people who haven’t seen their grandchildren in six months. I can hear the weariness in their voices. I probably stay on those calls longer than I should.

***Don’t worry KY Dems. Uncle Joe is coming for you on November 3rd!***

I learned quickly that each state has its own personality. Maine and New Hampshire don’t suffer fools or unknown callers gladly. I got a lot of, “It’s none of your damn business who I’m voting for.” Yep. Live free or die. Both of those states are looking good for Joe, but Susan Collins’ karma ticket is about to be punched. I imagine she is deeply troubled. On the bright side, she’ll have more time for brewskies with Brett Kavanaugh. What? I LIKE BEER.

***Heading to work in my campaign casual wear. It’s short for Veep!***

And now for the Trumpers. I’ll give them this – they are faithful parrots of their fearful leader. I’ve heard things like Joe Biden is a pedophile and Kamala Harris is a Muslim. That’s when my superpower of lip biting comes in handy. My absolute favorite response/insult from a Trump voter came from a young, white man (surprise!) in rural North Carolina. He said/yelled at me, “I DON’T VOTE FOR DEMOCRATS. CNN IS BULLSHIT. FUCK YOUR FEELINGS.” I desperately wanted to respond, “So, that’s a hard no on Joe?” Honestly, the Trumpers inspire me because they are a visceral reminder of how toxic Trump’s presidency has been for our country.

Sometimes I have a hard time falling asleep after my shift. There are always a few conversations that I replay and can’t quite let go of – like the young black woman in Detroit. When I asked her what her primary concern was in this election she sighed – a heavy sigh much older than her years – as I waited for her answer. She said in a flat emotionless voice, “I’m a black person, so who I vote for doesn’t really matter because nothing ever changes for us. I hope things will get better this time, but we’ll see.” Damn. I doubt I’ll ever let go of that conversation.

I’ve been surprised and deeply touched by the voters who have thanked me for what I am doing. Hearing a “Take care, girl” at the end of a call can really lift your spirits. The truth is that I love my job. Every day feels important – like when I talked a 93-year-old disabled woman through the process of requesting an absentee ballot. Dear Lord, I hope she mails it in early.

The bad news is that I’ll get the pink slip on November 3^rd. The good news is that Donald Trump will, too.

Go to VotingMatters.org/NC to update your registration, request a mail-in ballot, or find your voting location.

Wed locks

Just another Pandemic Saturday at my house.

We’ve all learned a lot about ourselves during this pandemic. Some of these things have come as a big surprise to me. For starters, I haven’t missed live sports at all. And I love sports. They just don’t seem all that important to me anymore. Well, at least not as important as almost 130,000 Americans dead from COVID-19.

Now don’t think I’m pining for sainthood or anything. There are some things I do terribly miss – like the movies – and I knew from day one of lockdown that the cinema would be high on my Most Missed List – right up there with haircuts. But guess what? I don’t miss them either. Now to be clear, I do miss my hairdresser, Kelly. I’ve been with her for almost 15 years and she is one of my favorite humans on earth. We talk about everything from Jesus – we are both big fans – to brow lifts – I’m on the fence. I adore her.

So, I thought for sure that once restrictions were lifted, I would be the first one dragging my raggedy roots back into the salon. My last appointment with Kelly was on February 25^th – ten days before I was to leave on a long-planned trip to the Holy Land with my dear wife and several friends. Yeah, well, you know how that worked out – just one of a bazillion Corona cancellations. All of this is to say that I headed into quarantine with a nice fresh cut and color. I was Zoom ready. Well, at least from the neck up.

I will confess to an unhealthy amount of vanity when it comes to my hair. I blame my father – Daddy with the good hair. He had a head of thick black hair and it remained that way until the day he died at 79. Friends would tease him about coloring it, but he never did. He always laughed and said they were just jealous. I am lucky that I got his hair – and to be honest, it is one of the few aspects of my self-image that I’ve never felt bad about. I love my hair and God knows I’ve invested a lot in it over the years – and I have the products to prove it.

Funny story. My wife and I had not been dating long when one afternoon she told me she was going to get a haircut. I asked her what time her appointment was, and she said, “Oh, I go to Great Clips – you just walk in.” I was grateful we were speaking on the phone and she couldn’t see the color drain from my face. She might as well have told me she was going to Starbucks for a kidney transplant. I was shocked and for a moment I questioned the future of our relationship – then I reminded myself that she has pretty hair and I did a quick ballpark accounting of the amount of money I would save in a year if I went to Great Clips. I’m not great at math but that trip to Machu Picchu would have been nice.

My hair grows very quickly and my wife has often trimmed it a bit between appointments for the past few years. I even ordered her nice scissors from Amazon – an upgrade from the dull drugstore pair she was using.

I guess I should tell you that my wife is a psychotherapist by trade – she just happens to have mad skills with scissors. Friends have joked that her salon would be called Hairapy. She giggles and thinks that it might be a nice career change with a lot less paperwork.

Anyway, as this pandemic wore on – and on – she started cutting my hair and these times have been some of our loveliest moments in lockdown. There is something very intimate about having your hair cut by your person – the one you love and share your life with. I think it is a bit like a trust fall – with a slightly less chance of injury.

My wife cuts with confidence so I’m never the least bit nervous. And she is quite conscientious about the whole thing so there’s not much talking except when she tells me to be still. I am pretty sure I am smiling the whole time because I feel so safe and cared for. These quiet times have been a sweet and gentle bubble during these anxious months. No one is in a hurry and it’s just us and some trees and a few birds. It is a very Zen salon even if the amenities are lacking – you must sweep up after your cut and there’s no cucumber water. But I’m not complaining – I know I’m lucky. Not everyone has access to a live-in Edward Scissorhands and I never take that for granted.

I have colored my hair since the first Bush administration. It was a pretty auburn color when I was younger but gradually faded to a dull brown over the years. I went through a blonde highlight phase in the ‘90s – hey, everybody was doing it – and I never even considered not coloring it. I thought for sure that I would be the old gray mare by month two of lockdown but somehow, I’m not. I’m not ready to commit to a colorless future, but for now – it feels easy – and so few things feel easy these days.

My wife has even given a few close friends a safe cut. Will snip for wine.

Kelly texted me about making an appointment just before North Carolina moved into Phase 2 and salons were preparing to open with new guidelines. I have no doubt that her salon is doing a good job of protecting clients and staff, but I am not ready to go back. My wife has chronic asthma and has not been in any public spaces – except her office – since the beginning of the pandemic and I don’t see any reason to take any unnecessary chances when it comes to this wicked virus.

That all probably makes me sound more thoughtful than I really am, and it is a little disingenuous. The truth is that I’m not ready to give up my deck cuts. You see, I have a big crush on the social worker with the scissors. Oh, and those brochures on Machu Picchu just arrived in the mail. Adios!

Taking flight

I don’t know about you, but for me, this pandemic has been a daily roller coaster ride. And I hate roller coasters. I try to start out most days with a moderately positive attitude so I can navigate the deep dips that may come – as they invariably do. Yesterday, was a most pleasant reversal of this ride – more like a Ferris wheel. And I love Ferris wheels.

Yesterday morning, I was below ground level after my weekly trip to the grocery store. And honestly, it had nothing to do with the grocery store, but the unmasked shoppers I encountered. I just don’t get it! What is so hard about wearing a mask? I had a running conversation with myself as I passed person after person without a mask. The twenty-something guy without one – stupid or just arrogant? Probably both. The old – like really old people – not wearing one. Death wish? Resignation? I had no answers, but plenty of side-eye as I passed the unmasked. Unfortunately, my side-eye, rather legendary, has apparently been rendered ineffective behind the veil of a mask.

Red state. Blue state. United States. Just wear the freaking mask!

I was just so damn mad and disgusted when I left the grocery store that I decided I needed what my dear wife likes to call a “corrective” experience. I ran home to give the groceries a quick Silkwood scrubdown and decided to take a drive to a local strawberry farm to pick up some seasonal deliciousness. This farm advertised drive-thru pickup, so I felt relatively comfortable with the outing.

It was a magnificent spring day – a Tarheel blue sky that NC is famous for. I made myself not listen to MSNBC on my Apple CarPlay on the ride out to the country and went with the Joni Mitchell channel on Spotify. Good call, right? I could feel my mask malaise dissipating as I turned down the little dirt road to the farm. I was greeted by a young man – wearing a MASK, thank you – holding a box of beautiful strawberries. He greeted me kindly and asked what I would like. I said, “Those.” I gave him my debit card – he ran it – and just like that I was driving home with my strawberries riding shotgun.

Mother Nature is a remarkable thing. As I looked back at the field of strawberries, COVID-19 felt far away – sort of like when you look down at the ground when you get to the top of a Ferris wheel. It was a feeling as sweet as those berries on the seat next to me.

I kept listening to music on my way back to town and decided to really live it up and go through the Starbucks drive-through for a cappuccino. I pulled into the parking lot and there were just a few cars ahead of me. I was on a roll. I ordered and when I got to the window, a very friendly young man – MASKED, thank you – handed me a perfect dry cappuccino – just like I like it. For the uninitiated, a dry cappuccino has less milk than a standard one and is topped off with a thick layer of milk foam. You can tell immediately if it has been made correctly when you lift the cup – it feels half-empty – just like the one in my hand. How high could this day go?

I was feeling so good that I decided to leave my bestie Carla a Marco Polo message. Marco Polo is a video chat app that lets you send messages back and forth with folks. As a dinosaur, the only Marco Polo I was familiar with was that annoying tag game we played in the pool when we were kids, but Carla keeps me young and on Day 2 of quarantine, she made me download the app. It has been our most used mode of communication these past two months. I like that it is so in the moment – good, bad, and ugly – and it has really kept us connected. A few weeks in of Poloing (our word) – Carla upped her game and started sending me videos of her playing the guitar and singing. This was a surprise to me because I didn’t know she could do either of those things, much less so well. We call these videos “Kiki’s Coffeehouse” – and I love them. It’s so fun to get a personal tiny desk concert now and then.

My last few Polos to Carla had been rather blue, so I wanted to share my up morning with her. While I was recording my video, I noticed that a lot of people were pulling into the parking lot next to Starbucks. Then I noticed two firetrucks and several police cars. I finished my chat and looked around to see lots of people standing by their cars staring up at the sky. Did I miss a pandemic eclipse? Then I remembered that the NC National Guard’s Airlift Wing was conducting flyover salutes to medical staff and other frontline workers. Somehow, I had landed smack dab in the perfect viewing site. Could this day get any better? Yes, it would.

I got out of my car – with my MASK – and surveyed the crowd. And it was a crowd. Families with little kids, lots of law enforcement as spectators, but running the lights on their cars to make it all a bit more festive. There was that excitement in the air you feel on the 4^th of July while you’re waiting for the fireworks to begin or the parade to start. People were happy and talking to each other in that benign friendly way we speak to strangers. I had a nice chat (socially distanced) with an older man wearing a Marine baseball cap.

I looked over across the street to the parking deck of Wake Forest Baptist Hospital and saw a huge group of hospital workers (DEFINITELY MASKED) standing by the wall looking up toward the sky. And that’s when I got the first lump in my throat. Then I heard a loud roar from the sky and there it was – coming right at us – a huge C-17 airplane. Disclaimer: I know less about planes than I do about cars – which is nothing. I looked it up. The C-17 is a large military transport aircraft.

It was so close I felt like I was ducking when it raced over my head. And then I heard people clapping and cheering. And that’s when the lump in my throat came out as tears – lots of them. What was this familiar feeling that started in my toes and rose to fill my heart? It was that feeling you get when the National Anthem plays before a football game. Goosebumps. That feeling of being an American. God, I haven’t felt that feeling in so very long. It was glorious and I didn’t want it to be over. No one did. Everyone lingered long after the plane was gone – not wanting to go back – to where we are now.

This pandemic has felt so different than 9/11. I mean, of course, it is different, but there has not been that tsunami of unity that a lot of us felt after that unspeakable tragedy. It might have been for just a few weeks, it’s easy to romanticize compared to our current shit show, but it felt like for a very long time, we were connected as Americans. I wonder if those not of age then will ever experience such a feeling. Honestly, I was beginning to wonder if I would ever know that feeling again.

But I did – yesterday. And after I had sucked in every breath of that magical moment, I finally got back in my car to drive home. I turned Spotify back on and what song was playing? Carolina in My Mind. Even I couldn’t make that up.

Sweet baby James makes everything better.

I stayed in the top car of that Ferris wheel the rest of the day, letting my feet dangle with not a worry in the world – smiling down at what I had been so deeply missing. My country.

Bookends

Two writers. One blog.

COVID-19